Heat-Pump Thermostat: Guidelines For Optimal Operation
by Greg Leisgang on February 1, 2012
Posted in: Heat Pumps
If you have recently installed a heat pump in your Cincinnati home, there are multiple approaches you can take to keeping your home a comfortable temperature. The goal is to save energy while remaining comfortable at all times. Here are three heat-pump thermostat options you can look into for your home.
Analog thermostat
This kind of heat-pump thermostat must be changed each time you want a different temperature in your home. It can’t be used for saving energy while you’re away or sleeping, and it won't warm up your home before you wake up or return home. However, since heat pumps generally don’t recover from setbacks very quickly, it’s best to choose a temperature and refrain from changing it, no matter what time of day or night it is.
Electronic programmable thermostat
A heat-pump thermostat that you can program allows you to set the temperature back, but this could be detrimental to efficiency, if the backup heat source is activated to help the system reach its target temperature faster. Backup sources are usually more costly to operate than your efficient heat pump. To get around this, some Greater Cincinnati homeowners program recovery settings 1 degree apart over the space of a few hours to prevent the backup heat source from kicking on. However, this method is tedious and not always successful.
Adaptive intelligent recovery control
With this type of device, the heat pump will run continuously until the programmed temperature is reached, without activating the backup heat source. When in between “sleep and wake” or “leave and return” settings, an adaptive recovery heat-pump thermostat will display “In Recovery.” It considers air temperature, wall temperature and the scheduled time that the home should reach the preset temperature, so you are comfortable while appreciating the greatest amount of energy savings possible.
The clear winner of these three options is the programmable heat-pump thermostat with adaptive intelligent recovery control. For more information about this kind of heat-pump thermostat for your new installation, please contact Tri-County Heating & Cooling in Butler County and the Greater Cincinnati area. We’re happy to answer any of your questions and extend our expert advice.
Thermostat image via Shutterstock.